


heart in a cage

by ozzyearp



Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: F/F, Gen, no one asked for this but here it is anyway, werewolf au? yes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-01
Updated: 2019-05-01
Packaged: 2020-02-07 09:41:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18618049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ozzyearp/pseuds/ozzyearp
Summary: “What’re you thinking about, huh?” Waverly asks as she shifts her weight on the barstool and mocks Nicole’s hunched position.The truth sits on Nicole’s lips, but feels more bitter than the drink in her hand. She’s thinking about pointed teeth, a gaping side wound, clumps of matted hair, the feeling of blood on her teeth and hands, and everything as gruesome as the folklore associated with the backwoods of Purgatory. Waverly wants to know these things, but Waverly isn’t any of them; she’s too soft, too sacred for Nicole to expose her hidden horrors.“Is it too cliché if I say you?” she decides on knowing damn well that she can talk about Waverly with more ease than she could ever talk about herself.Or ...The one where Nicole is a werewolf.





	heart in a cage

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve spent the better half of two months working on this single chapter alone. That being said, it’s kind of my baby and has been the amalgamation of apophoenix's meticulous editing of the final draft and my nerdy fascination with the supernatural. 
> 
> TLDR: If you’re a sucker for some slow burn and the supernatural, then this one’s for you.

When it came to noise complaints, Purgatory’s Sheriff Department was no stranger— or, more accurately, Nicole Haught wasn’t. Usually, the cause could be determined within the hour; Champ’s truck backfiring at dawn or Bobo Del Rey’s rally of ragtag misfits playing target practice with old cars, and they were always called in by one person. Nicole anticipates the phone call, her fingers flexing against the curve of her pen in anticipation, only to drop it once the phone rings.

“Purgatory Sheriff’s Department, this is Nicole Haught. How can I help you, Ms. Gardner?”

She doesn’t even bothering waiting for Mercedes’ voice to address her by name. Mercedes Gardner is as punctual as she is vulgar.

“Ms. Gardner? _Really_? You sound as stiff as your khakis. Mercedes is fine.”

Nicole picks up her pen again and begins clicking furiously, looking for something to distract her from Mercedes’ banter. “What do you have to complain about tonight, _Mercedes_?”

Three loud knocks against the glass behind her pulls Nicole’s attention from the phone call and the stern look on Nedley’s face forces her to channel her polite, police-regulated personality that she’s reserved for good citizens— citizens like Waverly Earp who’d walked through just an hour before with an overflowing box of papers and her signature smile.

Nicole offered one back, toothy and way too eager, but she tries not to get lost in the memory now. After all, that’s all there ever was with them: feelings that fleeted just as quickly as Waverly did, always closing the BBD office door behind her before any conversation could ensue.

Mercedes begins screaming into the phone, rescuing Nicole from her own torture only to provide another, much more shrill, form of it. “Hello? Deputy Doofus? I’m waiting.”

“Sorry, Mercedes. You were saying?”

“I wasn’t saying anything. I was waiting for you to listen.”

Nicole clears her throat in replacement of a groan. “I’m listening.”

“Look, I’ll keep it simple.” Nicole can hear Mercedes’ words muffling as her lips hollow around a cigarette and she waits for the click of her lighter. She exhales loudly before continuing. “I think someone was murdered in the woods behind my house.”

After nearly knocking her tin can of pens over and falling clean off her chair, Nicole pulls on her windbreaker and quickly explains the call to Nedley before leaving for the Gardner residence in her cruiser.

The April air was still cold and the streets were still slick with black ice that forced her to drive five miles under the speed limit to avoid sliding, but Nicole couldn’t enjoy the calm environment with Mercedes’ call weighing on her mind. Nedley hadn’t allowed her to investigate cases of this magnitude— or at least not yet. As far as Nicole was concerned, homicide (potential or not) had been reserved for the likes of BBD agents only and no amount of insisting her qualifications were higher than Wynonna’s would allow her access. This time, she grabbed her keys and left without another word, the mere thought of having to hand another case to Jeremy keeping her feet moving.

Once she arrives at the Gardner residence, however, she rethinks her decision.

Mercedes is already waiting for her on the porch, a half empty pack of Marlboros perched dangerously close to the edge of the railing beside her. Since her attack just a few months before, Mercedes returned with a new face and the same attitude. Before she started calling Nicole to file noise complaints, she called her to help open her safe and to investigate a stalker she thought she had. The accused stalker turned out to be Kate Horony-Cummings, one of the many romantic entanglements Doc Holliday had forgotten to tie off over the years. Yet, rather than press charges for squatting instead of stalking, Mercedes opted to acquire a new roommate.

Now, Kate’s name is the first off Mercedes’ lips as she leaps off the porch to meet Nicole halfway, leaving a trail of ash and smoke behind her.

“Kate wanted to go out and investigate, but I told her she should wait for you. I take it you’d rather have one dead body instead of two.”

“Ma'am, I’d rather have none,” Nicole clarifies as she turns around and locks the cruiser once more to be sure.

“ _Ma’am_? God, Nicole. Do you listen to anything I say?”

Nicole tightens her grip on her belt and chews on the inside of her cheek rather than her tongue, which she figures would come clean off if she had to bite it each time Mercedes egged her on. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

“I suppose that’s true.” She flicks her cigarette onto the ground and Nicole moves to kick it before it can roll underneath the cruiser. “Well, let’s get on with it. Kate’s outback, she’ll point you in the right direction.”

Any excuse to no longer be the only subject of Mercedes’ torture gets Nicole moving. She banks right and begins to make her way around the house to reach the back only to stop and backtrack when she realizes Mercedes is heading towards the front door instead of following her.

“Mercedes?” Nicole shouts just in time to stop Mercedes from closing the door behind her. “What’re you doing?”

She sighs just loud enough for Nicole to hear it from where she’s at and swings her head out from behind the door. “Getting drunk.”

It’s Mercedes’ way of saying goodbye and deeming her job complete, but Nicole still waits, staring at the now closed door. She stands awkwardly, occasionally turning in search of nonexistent guidance, until Kate rounds the corner and waves her down.

“Officer Haught!”

Nicole sighs with relief. “Ms. Horon—“

“I’m gonna stop you right there. Countessa or Kate is fine and much better than where you were headed.”

Kate extends her right hand forward to shake Nicole’s, which already leaves a better impression than Mercedes’. She shoots Nicole a wide smile, her teeth extremely white from what looks like excessive bleaching and her canines pointier than Nicole thought humanly possible, but that was simply the mysterious physical draw of Countessa. Her features were beautifully exaggerated like a melodramatic short film of existence, but her smile always seems weighted by centuries of past lives.

Nicole gives her an apologetic grin, trying her hardest not to acknowledge the perversion of her last name and the fatigue scrawled across her face. “Shall we head towards what you heard?”

“That’s the thing, I’m not so sure we should.” Kate practically whispers as she rings her hands together and starts to round to the back porch.

“What do you mean?”

“Didn’t Mercedes tell you?” Kate asks as she leans against the banister and bunches up a handful of her skirt to allow her to rest her foot on the first step of the stairs. Nicole starts towards the opposite side of the banister, her shifty sight catching Mercedes lurking by the screen door in her peripheral along the way.

“Well, she didn’t explain much over the phone.”

Before Nicole can even get the last syllable out, the screen door slams so hard against the wood panels around the house that Mercedes’ words almost get drowned out.

“I wanted you to see for yourself!” she yells in defense once she’s stepped onto the back porch.

Nicole jumps back a step, more willing to go into the woods than deal with Mercedes’ wrath. “And I will.”

“Listen, whatever it was it sounded like they were in pain. Like more pain than that time I got a full body wax.”

“Ma’am?” Mercedes grimaces at Nicole’s way of addressing her and it takes everything within Nicole to fight the grin that comes from her own teasing. “I’m going to go investigate. If I find something I will come back here and let you and my superiors know. If not I will see my way out. Does that sound okay with both of you?”

Surprisingly enough, Kate and Mercedes nod wordlessly in agreement and it’s enough to send Nicole on her way, her heels digging into the dirt that’s finally thawed under the spring sky. Small flowers bloom from the ground and Nicole attempts to sidestep the ones that seem to be growing with the most confidence, their stems the brightest and tallest of the bunch. It’s a beautiful path to what could be a brutal scene, but she strides forward, the thought of having to resume conversation with Kate or Mercedes keeping her going.

It isn’t like she hasn’t done this before either. While most cases these days hardly grazed her desk before being snatched by Dolls or Jeremy, occasionally one came her way without her looking or asking for it. They were mundane mysteries to say the least: dogs getting lost in the woods, trees falling down and crashing into the roadways with seemingly no explanation, even complaint calls from Shorty’s when someone tried to sing “Highway to Hell” on karaoke night even though Doc banned it from his business a few months ago. Still, it was never enough. Not for Nicole, not even for Wynonna.

Shortly after Wynonna, Champ, and Shorty were taken hostage by brainwashed cult members a few months ago, Wynonna had called Nicole a _local_ _flatfoot_  and at the time she took offense even though she knew damn well she’d done nothing but kick rocks and hand out tickets for a month straight. Now, as she walks into the abyss with an attitude destined for redemption, she figures it’s her time to prove her wrong.

The sun was already setting by the time Nicole pulled up to the house, but the blanket of greenery makes nightfall instantaneous as she walks past the first layer of trees. She attempts to disguise her hesitation as well as the pine does the cause of Mercedes’ complaint.

“Hello?” she finally shouts, her voice echoing against the rows of pine and coming back to hit her almost clean off her feet. Mercedes and Kate had provided her with so much conversation that the absence of all sound—aside from her own greeting and the distant blow of wind— leaves her as empty as she is frightened.

The silence rings louder than her voice.

“I’m Officer Haught. I’m with the Purgatory Sheriff's Department. Is anyone in here?” Nicole adds for the sake of personalization.

Her words are enough to rattle the bushes off to her right, but she remains calm— albeit with her hand fastened on the button that holds her gun secure against her belt. It’ll take her two seconds to pull the gun back and loosen it from the holster, which is hopefully more than enough time to defend herself, but it’s the last thing she wants to do even if it deems her a hero of sorts at work.

 _It’s about catching the bad guys, not killing them_ she repeats like a mantra in her head and eventually out loud when the rustling in the shrubbery seems to creep closer and closer.

Leaves crack and break beneath her weight, her steps accompanied by the noise nature makes, alerting someone--or something--to her presence. Whatever awaits amidst the dense foliage relies not on her discretion, peering past the aspen trees, every eye in the forest tracking her every move like a predator tracks its prey. It occurs to Nicole much too late that perhaps she is the latter, turning around and around with her weapon trained at nothing, as hopeless as any human being alone in the woods.

The problem is Nicole is far from alone.

When it happens, it happens fast. Anything that teeters precariously on the edge of life and death happens within a fraction of a second, something Nicole knows all too well. Writing incident reports was like writing flash fiction, her mind scrambling for meaningful details amidst the chaos that was a moment she knows could have been her last. Nedley often commented on her diction, her choice of words alluding to a connotation he was uncomfortable with for reasons Nicole had become suspect of.

“Your sentences make as little sense as … uh, well,” he’d grumbled as the paper folded under the weight of his fists.

Words weren’t his forte either, but he tried with Nicole— _for_ Nicole— substituting his grunts for a sentence of substance. Nicole did her best to fill in the blanks.

Nicole had only smirked. “As deputizing Wynonna?”

“She may be a hurricane, but as long as you’re in the eye of her storm, you’re safe.”

“Waxing poetic now, Sheriff?”

“You could be too if you didn’t write in fragments.”

Whatever is happening to her now, though, can only be described in fragments. Teeth—no, _fangs_. Sharp, imposing, sinking into her flesh. Claws. Full of dirt and grime, scratching at her face, seeking purchase on the fabric of her uniform, in her patches of exposed skin. Pain. Searing pain, her body thrashing of its own accord, tears washing away the blood that colors her sight. All of it comes together in fragments, as frightening as a sudden strike of lightning on an otherwise calm night.

The eyes tell a story though.

Nicole’s had shut tight as fangs met skin, but they open just as wide and just as fast if only to ensure that the black abyss behind closed eyes isn’t the last thing she sees.

Her father had told her years ago, when camping and _kumbaya_ were her parents’ only tools of guidance, never to look a wolf directly in the eyes. Unlike humans and domestic animals, there was a violent trigger to eye contact with wolves. Yet Nicole sees none of it in the yellow haze that peers down at her; vulnerability had taken the place of violence.

Disobedience always had its rewards, be it going to the academy instead of college or ignoring her father’s poorly-aged advice, and it doesn’t fail her under these paranormal pretenses either.

Time stills, if just momentarily, as they stare simultaneously, searching for _something_ behind each other's eyes. There’s a prison behind pupils and irises, but before Nicole can even venture to think about what the confined humanity entails, the wolf is jumping over her limp body and bounding into the bushes with the same intensity it had attacked her with.

Fight or flight. Sink or swim. Eat or be eaten. Nicole ponders them all, wondering how, in a moment like this, someone had the time to come up with alliterated catch phrases synonymous with staying the hell alive.

But that’s her objective: stay alive. So long as she’s breathing— and more aware of her injuries than she wishes she was— she’s alive and lifting herself off the ground.

Nicole thought making it to her car would be the hardest part. Afterall, she was a configuration of shrapnel at this point— a fragment of a person stumbling every few feet until she could cling to the handle of her cruiser and drive off.

It isn’t until weeks later that she realizes the turning is the hardest part. Not the knowing, not the being, but the transition.

__

The feeling loomed over her for days following the bite and the rapid healing of every puncture and pierce. Nicole had become more aggravated than usual with Wynonna in a way that couldn’t even be chalked up to Wynonna’s wit reaching new heights. It wasn’t until Wynonna called her a lunatic— which was polite considering her choice words prior to this— that Nicole realized why she’d been on edge.

It’s common knowledge, the association with the full moon and werewolves, but Nicole’s connection comes too late during the drive to her house with the rising moon following behind on every bend of the road. The light seeps inside her home like a lighthouse, highlighting her trepidation in every reflective service her house holds and forcing her to close every curtain in sight with a furiousness that sends Calamity Jane flying in fear.

The change creeps just the same, spreading like a shiver throughout her body until she’s twisting and turning her neck in an attempt to fight it-- still unsure of what _it_ is. Her fingers start to tingle, feeling asleep and completely alive all at once. It feels like electricity coursing through her veins, so much so that when she reaches for the handle to her bathroom she’s convinced it’ll blow her back into the living room. Despite her fears, she makes it past the door and locks it shut behind her before heading towards the bathtub.

This is an unnatural disaster, one that no amount of packed bags, duck and cover drills, or warning sirens could have prepared her for. Still, she resorts to what she knows, habitually clinging to her survival tactics in an attempt to feel sane as her nails and teeth lengthen to animalistic proportions. Before she can measure the success of her preparations, blackness invades her line of sight and she falls unconscious against the edge of the tub. No discretion spared as she falls _hard_.

The start of darkness was indistinguishable, merely a lapse in time that Nicole hopes and prays resulted in nothing. What she does remember is the end of darkness when the white light of her bathroom brought her back from the abyss she’d fallen into. It was flashes, blinks, and then blinding illumination that casted maroon shadows against the tile of her bathroom. In the dark corners of her mind where she resided for a morbid moment just minutes before, she’s convinced of the truth. That it’s blood which taints her hands and falls into the grooves of her floor to pool in the center and file out through her drainage system. Yet her naivety lurks and details hopeful alternatives that get Nicole to her feet at the very least.

The lock on the doorknob is still turned sideways in the locked position as she’d left it, proving she hadn’t tried to leave and had done harm to no one but herself.

Her hands tremble and draw her attention before anything else can. They’re blood-soaked, cold with carnage, and bruised. She’d seen them like this before, in a book or a vision, maybe even a dream. A _nightmare_ , actually.

They plagued her for the last month. It was only a matter of time.

This Nicole says to herself as she strips what little clothes are left, most of the fabric torn to shreds, from her body. She stands with her back turned to the mirror, purposefully avoiding her reflection.

Paranoia, another symptom. It was only a matter of time.

When she finally brings herself to look in the mirror, several seconds of anxious shaking and clothes folding later, she realizes no amount of sleep paralysis or neverending nightmares could prepare her for this sight. With her body no longer confined to the torn fabric of her uniform, she presses to her wounds tentatively, attempting to gather some composure and remember the training that should have prepared her for this moment. The mirror is so clean, so unphased by the chaos, that Nicole almost drives her fist through it. She’d been thinking of such brash actions all week, but she crushes her fingers against her hand as they curl into a fist and then release to reach for the door knob once she decides the bathroom won’t help her much longer.

The garage is her safe haven. Nicole half-heartedly runs to it, all the while keeping her hand pressed against the injury that caused the discoloration of her bathroom. The tear in her side looks like a bear’s doing, nothing but a few clawed lines that drip a trail from the bathroom to the side of the cruiser-- tainting it’s shine in the process.

She locates the first aid kit instantaneously, remembering it’s position on the third shelf which now seems like an irresponsible place to put it.

“Come on, Haught,” Nicole groans as she sinks to the floor and throws the plastic container open, the gauze and tapes spilling out and rolling underneath her car. She reaches for the largest bandaid and pulls it open with her teeth while her other hand secures itself against the wound, applying pressure she isn’t even sure will help.

The bandage makes contact with her cuts too aggressively, electing a harsh hiss from Nicole until the stinging subsides. She presses the edges firm against her which enable it to mold to her body and then kicks the first aid kit away. There is no more mending and meddling that could fix her.

Her head falls into her hands and she pulls her knees against her chest in support as she sighs. “God, I need a drink.”

Shorty’s isn’t usually Nicole’s first choice. Like anyone, she has her proclivities, most of which revolve around the half-empty bottle of gin underneath her sink that only calls to her on her hardest days. Tonight couldn’t even be considered one of her hard days— tonight was unmeasurable by difficulty. Tonight sends her practically running to Shorty’s and ordering a Redbreast neat from the first bartender that approaches her.

Nicole shrugs off her windbreaker, the only clean thing left aside from the gray tee she found shoved in a random draw after throwing her tarnished clothes in the trash, and only gets through a glass and a half before a familiar voice cuts through her alcoholic haze. For the first time tonight, she welcomes the quickening of her heartbeat.

“Hey, you.” Waverly cozies up against her side of the bar, cradling her arms underneath her chest with a slight lean forward. Nicole hopes that Waverly can’t smell the whiskey on her breath, even if it’s her job to serve to such points, because Nicole is supposed to be the dignified cop that Waverly can come to. Maybe the bar wench could try her hand at saving rather than serving.

“Hey.” Nicole drags out the middle of the word, hoping it sounds friendly instead of slurred. Her arm is tucked underneath her chin, supporting the full weight of her body that she’s pressed against the bar in exhaustion. Waverly looks just as tired slouched over the bar in the same manner, but she maintains her charismatic composure.

Their elbows knock across the counter, but neither of them move to change their positions.

“So,” Waverly starts, her voice light. “What’re you doing here? You’re hardly here, let alone past midnight.”

 _Midnight_. Now Nicole sways to the beck and call of the clock she supposes, but she sways to Waverly just the same.

“I’m not much for day drinking, or drinking in general really, but the customer service is unmatched.”

Waverly snorts, weakly but authentically nonetheless. “Unmatched to the three other worthy stops in Purgatory isn’t much of an achievement.”

“Hey, Mattie from Forge Hardware is close competition.”

It’s enough to get Waverly to laugh, to _really_ laugh. It’s the laugh where she throws her head back and her shoulders bob with the force of her sound. Mattie may have custom made appliances, but she doesn’t have this. She doesn’t have aged whiskey or this laugh or Waverly, all of which feel like the temporary cure Nicole seeks.

Waverly’s laughter dies out and she sighs as she catches her breath once again. “Mattie is a lovely woman.”

Nicole shrugs. “So are you.”

“Are you just saying that so I can pour you another?”

Nicole looks over her shoulder to observe those left, but only finds two leather jacket toting lovers crouched over the pool table in what looks to be a lousy match. She shouldn’t have another glass, she shouldn’t have even come to Shorty’s in the first place, but the allure of being anywhere _but_ the carcass of a house she’d left for here makes her stay.

“Well, since you offered.”

She straightens out and pushes the glass towards Waverly who’s already unscrewing the cap of the Redbreast Irish Whiskey Nicole had ordered from a seemingly nameless worker earlier. Waverly only goes as far as to fill the glass a quarter of the way up, opting to fill the remainder of Nicole’s order in a separate glass. The two cups clink together at the force of Waverly’s hand and she slides around the bar to sit next to Nicole.

“I got this one for you.”

Waverly tips her head back and downs half of the contents, leaving the same amount that Nicole has in her untouched glass. The Earps were drinkers, even if by association like Waverly.

Contrary to the beliefs of most people who’ve lived in Purgatory long enough to have known the Earps since they were infants, Waverly was never an Earp. If her lack of risky choices and inability to curse weren’t enough to convince everyone of that, DNA results were. When they arrived in late December Waverly had holed herself away at the Homestead, unable to so much as get out of bed let alone go to work. After a week had gone by, Wynonna asked Nicole to go to the Homestead to keep her company and make sure she was still breathing— but if anyone asked it was strictly business, a wellness check. The Waverly she’d visited then, hidden underneath six blankets with the lights out and her voice nothing but a whisper, looks nothing like the Waverly sitting before her now.

It’s a damned dichotomy.

“Thanks,” Nicole awes, even after her attempts to hide it behind a wide gulp of her own drink. It doesn’t go down as smoothly as Waverly’s did, but she tries to drink it with the same casual composure.

“What’re you thinking about, huh?” Waverly asks as she shifts her weight on the barstool and mocks Nicole’s hunched position.

The truth sits on Nicole’s lips, but feels more bitter than the drink in her hand. She’s thinking about pointed teeth, a gaping side wound, clumps of matted hair, the feeling of blood on her teeth and hands, and everything as gruesome as the folklore associated with the backwoods of Purgatory. Waverly wants to know these things, but Waverly isn’t any of them; she’s too soft, too sacred for Nicole to expose her hidden horrors.

“Is it too cliché if I say you?” she decides on knowing damn well that she can talk about Waverly with more ease than she could ever talk about herself.

Waverly snorts and turns away, facing the spot behind the counter where she once stood if just to hide the red that spreads across her cheeks. “You’re only saying that because I’m right in front of you.”

“Well, even if you weren’t, I’d be thinking of you.”

Nicole looks right at her, attempting to pry Waverly’s eyes away from the rim of her glass where her finger circles incessantly. She didn’t come here to flirt— hell, she didn’t even come here to talk— she came here to drink and forget. Yet she sits and lets the liquor talk for her in the meantime.

“You’re drunk,” Waverly finally laughs, but it sounds dry. Whatever she’s really thinking gets stuck in her throat and she attempts to down it with whatever is left in her glass.

There’s a question of whether Waverly wants her to be drunk or not. The potential answers are no clearer than the questions.

“Sure, _moondrunk_.”

Whatever the hell it means, it feels right. Nicole’s only said this much thanks to the midnight nightcap: one part whiskey, two parts full moon.

“What’s gotten into you?”

Waverly doesn’t sound mad— if anything, she sounds excited— but Nicole winces nonetheless. She’s been wondering the same thing, wordlessly and tirelessly. The sting in her gums and the ache in her ribs are evidence enough that whatever’s gotten into her is not a healthy host. Still, she has no answer for Waverly or herself.

Nicole sighs. “I wish I knew.”

“Care to find out?”

Before Nicole can begin to question her intent, Waverly’s sliding behind the bar and rinsing out both their glasses with a satisfied smile. “I’m off in thirty, if you want to get out of here and talk somewhere nicer.”

It’s fast and forward and full of confidence that Nicole didn’t presume Waverly to have, but just as quickly as she says it she’s folding in on herself anxiously. Nicole attempts to be just as forward, but there isn’t enough energy left in her; what she had was forgotten at her house where she nursed her wounds alone, bathing in a pool of her own blood and the shallow light of her bathroom.

She gathers the hollowness that is left in her body and lets it out in one breath. “I’ll wait for you.”

__

 

The backalleys of Purgatory tell a more haunting tale than the backwoods, Nicole decides once she’s pulled on her windbreaker and slipped out of Shorty’s. Every mortal monster that passes her is worse than the next, but for every mortal monster there must be an angel. She supposes Waverly is hers.

Even before tonight, before the bite and _especially_ before the turn, Waverly was a saint in some form. She had a way of gracing Nicole with her presence back then, but she does even more so now as she steps out of the smoking fog coming from Shorty’s.

“Sorry, that took longer than expected. You never can get away from upset patrons, huh? You know a thing or two about that I assume,” Waverly huffed in a long exhausted breath while she pulled her hair out from underneath her scarf, the red hair tie that’d held her ponytail together earlier now tight against her wrist.

Nicole props herself up on her toes— not that she needs to with all the extra inches she has on Waverly— and attempts to catch a glimpse of those who’d troubled Waverly. She huffs, unable to see through the condensation that’s spread across the glass window, and turns on her heel to aimlessly lead the way.

“Yeah, I guess I do,” she finally says, her mind still preoccupied. “So where are we heading?”

Waverly jogs to catch up to Nicole and she makes a mental note to shorten her stride. Prior to this they’d only gone as far as making the rounds at the station, Waverly often running to the BBD office with stacks of folders and boxes taller than her line of sight while Nicole stepped forward to hold the door open or relieve her of a box or two. They were coworkers, decent friends at best, and all attempts to transition to close friends had yet to be successful. There’ve been a handful of _some other time’s_ and many false promises for coffee or dinner, but there's never been any _I’ll wait for you’s_ until today. Now, on the edge of something much more intimate than coffee or even the liquor they just shared, Nicole asks questions and holds her breath until she gets a response.

By the time Waverly answers, Nicole’s silently gasping for air.

“Home,” she starts confidently before she turns back in on herself, tongue tied and troubled. “ _My_ home. The Homestead.”

The name alone has horror etched into every letter, the history of the land as grim and gruesome as the old cemetery right off Highway 68 just beyond the town limits. Or at least that’s what Wynonna says whenever someone from the BBD office mentions her anything but humble abode. The way Wynonna— and Doc, who seems to be the only one, besides the Earps, familiar with the territory— describes it always sends a chill down Nicole’s spine, but now she welcomes it because _she’s_ been invited.

The joy lasts only a few seconds as Waverly sidesteps into Nicole, carefully avoiding two drunks who Nicole would detain under any other circumstance. Instead, she wraps an arm around Waverly until they’re out of earshot and then regretfully releases her.

“Do you walk _home_ alone a lot? Because-”

“Because it’s dangerous? Yeah, I know. It’s- it’s new.”

Normally, Nicole would take this opportunity to offer a ride in her cruiser. Last week, Charlie suggested they wash it at the firehouse and they’d buffed and shined every scratch until you could spot your reflection against the white. Tonight the white stained red and she’d left it to rot in her garage until she had the guts to look at it again. She’ll have to for work, but now she walks with Waverly, occasionally sparing a glance to look at her as if she’s the only holy thing left in the world.

She just might be.

“So walking it is,” Nicole starts as they cross into the intersection separating the town from the Homestead. It’s a town in and of itself, nothing but rotting wood and dirt that stretches on for miles behind the house. So rarely has Nicole seen anyone not affiliated with BBD— or Waverly in Champ’s case— cross onto the Earp property. Even Bobo’s tirade has managed to steer clear of the area. Evil rests inside and out, Nicole knows this much, but she also knows there is a choice when picking your poison and the Earps have always drank from the same cup.

Waverly smiles and kicks a couple pebbles forward, highlighting the safe path home and derailing Nicole’s thoughts. “Aside from it being, you know, _dangerous_ … walking is nice. I like seeing the town at twilight or even now, so late. I will admit though, it’s nice having some company.”

The tinge of pain that comes from the direct content of Waverly’s elbow to the still tender spot on her ribs is easily ignored once her comment sinks into Nicole like the gesture.

“It _is_ nice to have someone to talk to,” Nicole agrees.

A question sits on Waverly’s lips, but freezes in the cold air and anticipation. Whatever it is, Nicole probably doesn’t have an answer and she’s thankful for the silence that lingers as they walk to the front porch.

The door is open a crack, allowing the cool spring breeze to blow inside with an invited intensity. Normally, Nicole would be opposed to this; she’d tell Waverly more about the dangers of keeping your door unlatched and being unprepared for intruders, but Waverly’s casual approach dismantles any argument.

Waverly pushes the door the rest of the way open with her foot and heads towards the living room with practiced ease, picking up paper plates and empty whiskey glasses as she rounds the coffee table in front of Wynonna who’s slouched against the arm of the loveseat, Peacemaker, a name Nicole learned was assigned to her pistol through her practiced eavesdropping, perched on her lap like it had been all week at the office when she fell asleep during another late night. Nicole had removed it every time only to get an angry speech from Wynonna about how _shooting herself in the vagina_ _would be a breeze compared to the bullshit she’s been dealing with_. Nicole hadn’t asked then and she won’t now, content to let Waverly clear the space and lead her upstairs.

“If they’re not falling asleep at the office on your watch then they’re falling asleep here on mine,” Waverly jokes, her voice just above a whisper while she steps over Jeremy who’s asleep on the floor and shuffles around Doc whose head lulls off the couch and into the small sliver of walkway left.

It’s never been Waverly’s job to take care of people. Even at Shorty’s her job description never detailed her needing to nurse Levi or Fish after a brawl with Bobo or call Mercedes a ride when she gets drunk before the sun even sets, but she fills the position time and time again. She especially didn’t need to invite Nicole over or even so much as speak to her tonight, but she _did_ and the smile she sends Nicole’s way with earnest intent as she eases a pillow underneath Jeremy’s head and takes a half eaten slice of pizza out of Dolls’ limp hand makes Nicole feel like anything but a burden.

All of which is a first for her.

Once Waverly’s done her best to make the crowded living space comfortable for those in comatose within it, she pulls on Nicole’s hand and makes her way to the stairs. “Come with me.”

It’s a demand more than a request, Nicole notices as Waverly tugs weakly, but it feels like a fleeting offer, one that Nicole holds on to tightly and lets guide her the rest of the way up.

Waverly squeezes Nicole’s hand once and swings it forward to push the door to her room forward, allowing Nicole into the previously protected room. She’d thought about what Waverly’s room might look like a million times over, often when she was restless and staring at her own ceiling. She always wondered what Waverly saw when she looked up, but one glance around her room and Nicole realizes there is much more than drywall and plaster to be seen.

There are more books than there are walls, each corner of the room accented with novels larger than Nicole ever thought possible for print. It leaves Nicole speechless, the words she seeks hidden behind the spine of the books all around her. Waverly pays them no mind and resorts to untying her shoelaces as Nicole awes.

“I see you like books,” Nicole acknowledges as she makes her way to the nearest bookshelf, thumbing at the lettering along the spine.

 _Carrie. The Book of Imaginary Beings. Dracula. Frankenstein. The Complete Book of Werewolves._  

Nicole turns quickly, her finger still fiddling with the pages she can reach without pulling a book all the way out, and looks for Waverly who’s discarded her shoes and made the walk to Nicole.

“Yeah,” she finally says, her voice hardly a whisper and her head hung low in embarrassment.

“And they’re mostly…”

“Supernatural, dystopian, gothic horror, so on and so forth. Well, I guess _1984_ is more reality than we care to admit these days,” Waverly finishes for her, excitement seeping its way into her geekiest words. 

“Sure,” Nicole agrees, even though she hadn’t spared the novel so much as a second glance since it was assigned her senior year of high school. “Well, what can you tell me about lycanthropy?”

She hooks her finger around the ridge connecting _The Complete Book of Werewolves’_ binding and the pages and drops it into her hand. Behind her sits Waverly, one foot tucked underneath her body as she waits for Nicole to join her at the edge of her bed, her hands extended forward for the book.

”Oh my, so much,” she says excitedly as she impatiently waits for Nicole to stop inspecting the back cover and hand her the book.

When she finally slides it into Waverly’s hands, not before first allowing the heat from Waverly’s fingertips to burn her knuckles as they touch, she stares at it with dangerous curiosity. It isn’t until she’s turned the book over three times that Waverly alludes to any knowledge of the contents.

“I’m glad you find this stuff interesting. Wynonna tolerates it, but Champ hated it.”

“ _Hated_?”

The past tense rings in Nicole’s ears like church bells.

“Yeah. Uh, he’s not really my concern anymore.”

Nicole swallows hard, trying to bite back a smile, afraid it’ll draw blood.

“Oh,” she finally says, releasing the vice grip on her tongue. “I’m sorry ‘bout that.”

Waverly shakes her head and swallows just as hard, forcing down her own words that Nicole desperately wants to hear. “No, it’s worked out actually. Rosita and Wynonna are kind of in heat since— well, since Wynonna found out she was hiding some things from her. So she’s steered clear of Shorty’s since, leaving me to pick up her hours and keep my mind off of it. Have I thanked you enough for making it more interesting tonight?”

She had in her own way, through cryptic caresses and backhanded comments, but Nicole craves more like the carnal creature she’s become. “One more time wouldn’t hurt.”

“Well, thank--” Waverly pulls her gaze away from the book to face Nicole, but stops just short of her eyes. It leaves a smile lingering on Nicole’s lips and it isn’t until she notices that Waverly’s focus is concentrated exactly on that feature that it turns into a sly smirk. She watches Waverly’s own lips fall open before smacking shut and attempting to form the words to continue their conversation. “You, thank you.”

Everything in Nicole wants to acknowledge how Waverly waited, but she chokes back her words for Waverly’s sake. “You were going to tell me about werewolves?”

If the sigh Waverly omits is anything to go by, she’s grateful. “Yes, I was!”

The book falls open in her lap to a page near the middle and Nicole’s eyes linger over an image of a man beside an image of a crouching wolf on its hind legs. She wants to look away and ignore the similarities she’d spent an hour looking at in murky mud puddles tonight, but she stares on confidently out of fear Waverly will notice if she doesn’t. She always does.

“They are-“ Waverly cuts herself off, closing her eyes and tightening the finger she was pointing with before shaking her heading and picking up where she left off. “The _folklore_ , I mean. It’s super interesting. It’s all deep rooted in human nature more than anything. It originated through ancient storytelling and campfire stories where everyone was the beast. Your sibling, your neighbor, your friend, your... _lover_ even.”

There’s another purposeful pause that Nicole tries not to notice, her eyes still glued to the page as Waverly’s fingers trail vertically along the paragraphs without a destination. When she finally decides to look up, Waverly’s side-eyeing her again, her thoughts and her sights untraceable.

Waverly finally smiles, the grooves around her eyes deepening. “I tend to geek about this stuff… I couldn’t possibly explain it all in one day.”

“Some other time then,” Nicole suggests, creating her escape to close the book and forget the image inside. When Waverly doesn’t close it, her hands still around the back of the book, cradling the contents, Nicole pulls one end against the other and closes it herself. Waverly rises and walks to her bookshelf before Nicole’s touch can linger any longer over her lap.

She wedges the book back in the same spot between _Carrie_ and _Frankenstein_ and keeps her back to Nicole as she speaks. “Is there a reason why you want to know about these things all of a sudden? Was this what you were thinking about back at Shorty’s?”

It’s anything but sudden. It’s an amalgamation of handing over cases unexplainable by Nedley or any of her superiors, being unable to explain Bobo Del Rey’s inability to be caught or shot down, the way Rosita’s eyes shut when Wynonna gets too close and she turns away. The bite was both the boiling point and the awakening, but Waverly’s assurance would be the confirmation she needs— not that she’s sure she’ll get it.

“You really don't believe I was thinking about you?” Nicole asks, more determined to hear Waverly’s truth than admit her own.

Waverly waits and reorganizes some of the books on a middle shelf, taking one out and reading the cover before moving it over two spaces and repeating the process. If Waverly alphabetized her thoughts the way she does her books then maybe Nicole would know what she’s thinking, but Waverly’s chuckling and answering before she can even start to guess.

“Not for the reasons I wish you were.”

It comes out as a breath, a chuckle even, but Nicole hears it and latches onto it until the scars on her hands take the purpose of _this_ and not the tragedy of earlier tonight.

Waverly’s back is still to Nicole and she watches her shoulders stiffen as the words linger for a little too long. It has the complete opposite effect on Nicole who’s hopeful grin translates to anything but nervous. It’s not like she hadn’t thought about it before— about Waverly, about Waverly and _herself_. Each time she’d let herself venture that far, she came back with the thought of Champ giving her a headache and leaving her ridden with guilt. She can bask in the idea now that it’s just her and Waverly and more books than Nicole could ever count.

“What?” she finally asks Waverly, knowing that this is sacred and two seconds away from being a total disaster if she doesn’t speak up.

Waverly turns her head to the side and attempts to disguise her own disbelief over her comment. “Nothing.”

In the same way that Nicole’s fascination wasn’t sudden, Waverly’s isn’t nothing. Still, Nicole refrains from prying and finally allows her own truth to be told. “You’d think I was crazy if I told you the half of it,” she admits as she sikes herself out of admission. Waverly drops a book against the shelf she’d been rearranging, drawing Nicole’s attention back to her as Waverly turns and looks on with more intrigue than she had any book or any bourbon earlier.

“Then tell me a quarter of it.” Waverly raises her eyebrows and grins.

Nicole takes a deep breath in, allowing the air to hit her lungs and scorch the pain from prior howls and yells. Whatever she’s about to say will be more difficult to get out than any abnormal utterance she’d proclaimed to the moon. “Something has always felt off here, right?”

“In Purgatory?” Waverly confirms.

“Yeah.” Nicole pauses and takes a deep breath in to prepare. “I mean, there’s something going on in this town… something _big_ and I can’t explain it without saying that it’s superna-”

“Waverly? Are you home?” a voice cuts through before Nicole can complete her sentence. The same voice echoes through the halls of the Purgatory Sheriff’s Department almost every day, yelling at citizens, cursing criminals, and shooting out sarcasm to anyone who’ll listen, but here it’s much louder and the means to an end.

Waverly pushes herself off the bookshelf fast, a little too fast considering how her feet get caught on the edge of her carpet and push her straight into Nicole who’s still seated on the edge of Waverly’s bed. She catches her, securing her hands against her hips and applying enough pressure to steady her but not get greedy.

“Wynonna hates it when I bring people here while the BBD guys are over,” Waverly breathes out as she catches her breath from the fall and leans into Nicole.

Nicole has to look up at her to catch her eye and when she does she wishes she hadn’t. There’s a slight upturn in her lips and a haze in her eyes because she brought _Nicole_ here and she wasn’t supposed to, but she might just be worth the risk.

Later, much later when she’s done cleaning the mess she left at home and searching for Calamity Jane under tables and couches, she’ll blame the way her hands stayed hungrily on Waverly on her newfound animalistic instincts. Then, as her panic subsides and Calamity Jane emerges from the shadows, she’ll realize that her desire for Waverly is the most human thing about her.

Before Waverly’s hands can move to cover Nicole’s that are secure against her, Nicole removes them one at a time and starts towards the opposite side of Waverly’s room.

“It’s okay, I’ll sneak out the window,” Nicole insists more than suggests with one knee now propped against the bench below the window sill.

Waverly starts towards her, albeit reluctantly and not before glancing over her shoulder at the closed door. “It’s a big drop. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“I’ll be fine, just help me open it.”

Nicole’s more than capable of opening it herself, but she beckons Waverly out of hope that she might get more than a rushed goodbye.

Waverly’s eyes stay trained on Nicole as she moves through her room, unwilling to lose sight of Nicole even with her movements stalled as she waits for Waverly. As Waverly’s eyes pierce through her, Nicole blindly searches for the lock that keeps Waverly’s window closed and pushes it until she hears the _click_ that preludes her exit. Her leg slides along the bench and outside the windowsill in one swift motion, all the pain she’d once felt now gone as she stabilizes herself on the loose patio tiles along the Homestead roof.

Nicole’s hands hold onto the window, but almost lose their grip when Waverly’s own fingers grace over them as she positions herself to sit along the bench and see Nicole off.

“Listen,” Waverly starts, her eyes searching to find solace somewhere other than Nicole’s stare. “If you want to learn more in the meantime try and find Rosita. Mostly because I’m worried about her, but also because she knows more than you’d think. She is more than you think.”

It’s as surreal as it is satisfying, but Wynonna’s sudden knocking cuts Nicole’s chance to thank Waverly short.

A smile, the widest one she’s been able to manage all night, will do for now. “I guess I’ll see you around.”

Waverly sits quietly, deliberately ignoring Wynonna’s incessant pounding against her door until it escalates to threats and the sound of metal on metal— Peacemaker tapping against the door handle.

“Waverly, don’t make me kick down the door. It’ll be a bitch to repair!”

It skews the balance of their silent exchange and sends Nicole halfway down the edge of the roof, but not before turning back to catch Waverly’s apologetic grin.

She cups her hands around her mouth and shouts just loud enough for Nicole to hear but Wynonna to miss. “ _I’ll wait for you._ ”

**Author's Note:**

> If you made it this far, wow thank you! Stay tuned for (sporadic) updates or follow me @haughthysteria on twitter for them.


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